Americans worried that Donald Trump will take advantage of Supreme Court-confirmed presidential immunities to target political opponents during a second White House term should lay those concerns to rest, U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio said.
According to Rubio, the ex-President will be preoccupied with immigration enforcement and restoring the country's standing on the world stage to go after his rivals.
"He will be too busy undoing all the damage of this disastrous (Joe Biden) presidency. He'll be too busy securing our border and making America prominent and respected on the world stage again" Rubio, a top contender for Trump's Vice President, told CNN's Dana Bash on Sunday.
"When Donald Trump was President, I can't think of a single prominent Democrat who was chased around, persecuted, prosecuted. It's funny to me to read these people and hear these people out there warning about all of the horrible things they ridiculously claim Donald Trump is going to do if he becomes President again. They're the ones who are going after their political opponents. Donald Trump has been the one that's been very clear that his vengeance is going to be by winning and making America great again, not going after his political opponents."
In a 6-3 July 1 decision pushed through by the panel's conservative supermajority, the Supreme Court ruled that a President could claim immunity from criminal prosecution for official actions while in office. The decision notes that a President "enjoys no immunity for his unofficial acts, and not everything the President does is official."
Some have questioned how broad this newly confirmed immunity is, including whether it shields Presidents from being held accountable for, among other things, utilizing the justice system to go after political opponents or even ordering their assassination.
So far, Rubio said, the President in recent memory to do such things is Biden.
"Understand why this has become topical, why we now have to discuss this issue. It is clear that we have reached an era where there are people in American politics who believe that our courts are now a weapon and can be used against their political opponents," he said.
"You look at their efforts and what they've done to persecute and prosecute Donald Trump. They've tried to bankrupt him. They've tried to silence him. They've tried to jail him. They've gone after his allies every single day. And some of these are ridiculous charges."
On May 30, a New York jury convicted Trump on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records in connection with a pre-2016 election hush-money payment to adult film actress Stormy Daniels, with whom prosecutors said he had an affair.
Trump also faces three other pending criminal cases — in Florida, Georgia and Washington, D.C. — over his efforts to block Biden's election win in 2020 and the former President's mishandling of classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach County.
That's all happening under Biden's leadership, as are numerous other prosecutorial efforts that disproportionately target Republicans, Rubio said.
"There's evidence in the headlines every day," he said. "Every day you open up (the newspaper), it's another Republican who's going to jail somewhere."
Bash argued that prosecutors and the Department of Justice (DOJ) are rightly going after wrongdoers, including Democrats such as U.S. Sen. Bob Menendez of New Jersey, who is accused of selling political favors. She added that Trump has said he would work to pursue criminal charges against Biden and other members of Biden's family if he is re-elected.
"That's something that we've never heard," she said.
Rubio brought up Hillary Clinton, Trump's opponent in 2016 about whom the ex-President said similar things (see: "Lock her up"). That was all bluster in Trump's case, the Senator said.
"He was President for four years. He didn't go after Hillary Clinton. He didn't go after Joe Biden. He didn't go after Barack Obama," he said. "He didn't go after any of their consultants. We didn't see under him what we're seeing now, (and) I watched the debate, (where Trump) did not say, 'I'm going to go after them and so forth and I'm going to put them in jail.'"
Rubio is correct that Trump did not float prosecuting Biden on the debate stage. But Trump has indicated he's open to the idea elsewhere.
On July 1, the same day Trump's former chief strategist Steve Bannon reported to prison for contempt of Congress, Trump said Biden is "going to pay a big price" for the "weaponization" of the justice system.
Like Rubio did Sunday, Trump's national press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, told ABC News that Trump was referring to a loss for Biden in November and a second White House term in which Trump would focus on "making America great again."
But just two weeks earlier, after the DOJ unsealed a 37-count indictment against him, Trump wrote on Truth Social that if he wins later this year, he will appoint a special prosecutor to target Biden and his family.
"Now that the 'seal' is broken," he wrote in all caps, "I will appoint a real special 'prosecutor' to go after the most corrupt President in the history of the USA, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family, & all the others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders, & country itself!"
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